


Man-made

by LaurelSilver



Category: 2P Hetalia - Fandom, Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, M/M, Post-Apocalypse, Suicide Attempt, Trans Male Character, Transphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-03-13 01:36:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3362963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaurelSilver/pseuds/LaurelSilver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Enviromentalists are calling the impending doom "The Man-made Apocalypse".<br/>A man and his school sweetheart find shelter in their local library.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Man-made

**Author's Note:**

> I had intended to enter this for BBC Booktrust competition but it's too long, so I changed the character names back to the characters the idea was based on to upload it here.  
> This is much more censored than I usually write, because it was a young adult competition.  
> WARNINGS for transphobia, suicide attempts, destructive behaviours including cutting and smoking, lightly referenced islamophobia, and first person perspective with some tense changes and removed speech marks

"We had it coming, Nikolai," Matt huffs, puffs of smoke punctuating the deep voice. “They kept saying it was. None of us listened. Well, apart from the eco-freakos, but nobody listens to white teens with dreadlocks.” I don't grace him with an answer.  
We sit in the back of the library, the storm raging on outside sending flashes of light and long shadows tumbling over the shelves and worn-out furniture. The librarians have apparently had the sense to heed the weather warnings; we had to break the door in to get out of the open fire of rain, only our wet footprints in the doorway, only our coats and boots drying slung over the tall reception desk, my trench coat seeming to dwarf his red jacket. I get the feeling we aren’t going to get sued for the damage.  
For a few years, environmental scientists have been constantly trying to warn the public about all sorts of issues, from oil to the atmosphere to weather. At first, the public panicked and there was a trend of green cars and recycling and turning off the light, but within a year the public stopped caring and the environmental warnings became repetitive and boring and background noise. The scientists gave the impending doom the name “The Man-made Apocalypse”, which was of course subject to mockery. Environmentalists, or the eco-freakos as comedians and journalists dubbed them, wrote and performed pretentious analyses of the name; Man made the problems, Man made this apocalypse. Feminists had a field day.  
"What are you even doing out here?" Matt asks between thunder claps and cigarette sucks, "You were always the sensible one of us."  
If he was trying to make some sort of joke, I don't find it funny. "I was going to my sister's house. Her house is sturdier and warmer than mine."  
"How is Kat?"  
"Good, last I saw her. Married now, to that neighbour your Tommy hated. Expecting, can’t decide between a Buddhist or a Muslim name. What about Tommy?"  
"Wouldn't know," Matt's growl softens, if only slightly, "Haven't spoken to him since I left."  
Thunder yells. "Have you tried?" I ask.  
"Of course I have. He swore at me and slammed the door in my face. Didn't bother trying to go back. Sent him a few texts before the storm, but he never answered."  
I don't try to console him. Consoling hadn't worked when Tommy spat in his face. Consoling hadn't worked when Matt had been thrown out of our prom, and I had of course followed. Consoling hadn't worked when Matt told me he didn't want his issues to cause me hurt too, didn't want me to be labelled and insulted too, and he'd left me at my sister's house and vanished, ran away from home. I doubt consolation would work here.  
"And you?" I ask, "What were you doing out?"  
"Hospital appointment. Overdue my t-shot, and I didn't want to miss it."  
"Did you?"  
"Yep." He chokes a laugh, and light another cigarette. He holds the pack out to me, and I shake my head no; I'd quit shortly after he'd left. He shrugs, stands up and wanders off.  
Lightning flashes, and the lights go out. Matt is a dark, slim silhouette slinking along the seizure show, all all baggy clothes and bunched hair and slim waist. He hasn't changed as much as he probably likes to think; his face is still round and slightly puffy and lined down with frowns, his shoulders and hips have bulked up a little but are still smooth enough to make me want to rub my hands over them to pull him into a hug, his skin is still almost-olive sun kissed and lined with pink little scars under his sleeves I bandaged and told him never it to do again, Mattie, please.  
I have no phone signal. I can only hope my text to Kat arrived. "I am safe" it reads "and Williams is with me just like old times"  
Several long minutes pass in bangs and flashes and drums of rain and cold ghosts. The outside world is so loud in its storm that I almost can't hear the sounds inside the library. At first, it sounds like a few barely audible squeaks, and an exaggerated sigh. A quiet sniffle, some deep breaths in and out, then a thud of someone collapsing to the floor.  
I dash over, sliding on the tiles in my bare feet. Matt sits on the floor, cross-legged like I remember he used to, a yearbook open in his lap. Tears stream freely down his face sobs wracking through his body one by visible one, the chokes climbing in pitch and I wonder exactly how overdue Matt's t-shot is.  
I sit opposite him, mirroring his folded pose, and gently prise the book off his legs. It our yearbook, from the year we left and we had won The Cutest Couple Award. There we are on the open page; Matt with his curly hair and shy smile and that red dress he hated, and me with my hockey-player build and the Chinese face that always confused people when I would speak in a Russian accent and the uncomfortable suit that had only lead to an argument of I Have It Worse Than You, and in a swirled gold script at the bottom of the picture are our names "Nikolai Braginski and Matilda Williams."  
Except after "Matilda Williams" someone has scrawled "is a murderer" and several other select insults in the ugly chicken scratch of Thomas Williams, voted Most Loyal And Protective. Slurs and crude graffiti deface the photograph in the same ballpoint font, leaving the page bent and dented and scratched, and I numbly remember idly running my fingers down the healed valleys of Matt’s forearm.  
“Kat always said he was a cabbage, didn’t she?” I say plainly. Matt barely smiles.  
I scoot around, the squeaks of the tiles and swooshes of my clothes lost in the thunder. I put an arm around Matt’s shoulders, and he leans into me, resting his head on my chest and I fight the urge to run a hand through tangled hair. The book sits next to me, closed, bound in plastic to keep the card and fabric cover intacts Mine fell apart after five years of being moved from the coffee table to the shelf and back again and back again, never being opened. I get the feeling Matt never even looked at his.  
A cold wind blows through the library, and I shiver involuntarily.  
“We need a fire,” Matt mumbles. He climbs to his feet and begins to march off, pausing only to say, “Gather up some books. Save ‘literature’ for last; grab any book you hate.”  
Matt drags the bin, just a large metal basket without it’s bin bag garb, to the chairs we’d been sitting at earlier, and begins to tear up a children's book about bullying. One of the character’s names is Thomas.  
The bin full, Matt pulls out his cigarette box and lights up the last stick. He takes the yearbook, rips off the plastic cover, and ignites the corner. As flames begin to lick up the sides, eating the paper and card and fabric into ashes, he throws it down. It land, open on the photograph of the full year group. Tommy and Matt stand side-by-side, two swarthy faces among a sea of students, one with a smile slightly more forced than the other. The pages curl as they burn, and I accept the cigarette when Matt holds it out to me, the room slowly filling with smoke.

**Author's Note:**

> 'Cabbage' is a (weak) insult in Russian  
> 'T-shot' refers to a testosterone shot, taken by transmen to replace their estrogen
> 
> HEADCANNONS;  
> Matt is a transman, hence the bandages he wears (please don't actually use bandages for binding - use proper binders!) and why he's a little over-the-top manly - he's feels the need to overcompensate. He keeps his hair fairly long, though, because he likes having a bunch  
> Nikolai is Chinese-Russian


End file.
